have actually been found yet. At least not according to My Son The Astronomer who is doing exo planet research.
Most of what they've found are gas giants, "hot Jupiters" very close to their stars. That's mainly because smaller planets are a lot harder to detect, and ones that take much time to revolve around their stars are likewise harder to locate. As the exo planet finding technology improves, we will eventually find smaller planets that are farther away from their stars.
Essentially, every single star we look at turns out to have planets. That's the good news. Whether any of them might harbor any sort of life, let alone intelligent life, remains to be seen. Also, according to My Son The Astronomer, the current thinking is that we may well be pretty much the first intelligent life in our galaxy. The conditions required for even the very beginning of life are so specific, and it apparently takes a VERY long time to go from a single celled form to anything more complex, that those conditions may be vanishingly rare. Plus, when you get closer to the center of the galaxy, deadly radiation would tend to eliminate most life. So the idea that there are any number of older and vastly superior life forms out there is just an idea. So far, zero evidence.
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